India will clinch a clutch of balanced free trade agreements (FTAs) in the coming months, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday, exhorting domestic industry to take advantage of the immense opportunities that are set to come its way and scale up exports.

Speaking at an interactive session with industry leaders on the Budget for FY23 in Mumbai, organised by BSE, Goyal said India will sign a trade deal with the UAE in the next few days and the FTA talks with Australia are at an advanced stage. New Delhi will also launch the second round of formal talks with London in March for such a trade pact. Interestingly, the Gulf Cooperation Council has evinced interest in forging an FTA with India, the minister said.

According to sources, India has zeroed in on more than 1,000 products across sectors, including textiles and garments, gems and jewellery, leather, spices, engineering goods, chemicals and poultry, where it wants duty concessions from the UAE under the proposed FTA. India and the UK are negotiating for a pact that could cover more than 90% of tariff lines; both are aiming to double bilateral trade of both goods and services to about $100 billion by 2030. With Australia, India had a deficit of $4.2 billion in FY21 on a bilateral goods trade of $12.3 billion.

“The world wants to trade with you, and you have to seize this opportunity,” Goyal told the captains of industry.

At the same time, he impressed on industry to be more proactive and flag non-tariff barriers being faced by Indian exporters overseas so that appropriate remedial measures can be initiated by the government. “I want you to come and tell me which country is creating a problem. Unless you tell me, how can I fight for you?” he asked exporters. For instance, Indonesia was not allowing tyre imports from India while it was dumping its own tyres here until the Indian government took retaliatory measures.

Goyal said both merchandise and services exports are poised to hit a record this fiscal. While goods exports will touch $400 billion, services exports are set to touch $240 billion, he said. In fact, merchandise exports between April and January this fiscal touched almost $336 billion, higher than the earlier annual record of $330 billion (in FY19), with two more months to go, he added.